Working in the tradition of such previous poetry collections as Daphne Marlatt’s Vancouver Poems (1972), George Bowering’s Kerrisdale Elegies (1986), Joe Blades’ River Suite (1998) and, closer to home, William Hawkins’ own Ottawa Poems (1966), rob mclennan’s thirteenth trade poetry collection The Ottawa City Project reads like a love song to a city caught between competing identities of local and national. The poems in this collection work to not only reflect the more conservative, even bureaucratic aspects of the city, but the myths of the city, and work through references and concerns that go completely against those myths, into their own stories, and into the realities of the city itself.